"I did expect a primary," Musto said in an interview after he delivered a brief acceptance speech to the crowd. "I can count as well as anybody else."

Moore, who has tried and failed to unseat Musto in the past, said before the convention began that she, too, had crunched the numbers and knew she had enough support to bring her case to the voters.

Hughes, who took over running the city's public libraries in 2007, has had time to observe Bridgeport politics and to begin getting involved in earnest. Earlier this year, he won a seat on the town committee.

"We'll see each other on the campaign trail," Ayala told Hughes during his endorsement victory speech, adding that it would be a positive campaign.

Upping the quotient of political intrigue is the fact that ex-state Sen. Ernest Newton and his allies are backing the two challengers.

Newton was able to cast a vote Monday for Hughes and hung around to observe the match between Musto and Moore. Newton acknowledged on his way out of the restaurant that his opposition to the incumbents is personal. He feels the Bridgeport delegation abandoned him when the state Legislature last year enacted a change to the public campaign financing program that bars felons from participation.

"(They) passed a bill in Hartford to deny me the right to participate in what they can participate in," said Newton, who resigned his state Senate seat in 2005 after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

In 2012, Newton made a stunning comeback, winning the party's endorsement to challenge his successor, state Sen. Ed Gomes, for his former seat. The two were beaten in a three-way primary by Ayala, who won the general election.

Subsequently, Newton was charged with first-degree larceny, campaign-finance fraud and witness tampering related to his 2012 campaign's participation in the state's campaign finance program. That case is pending.